Anspach & Hobday capacity hits 1.76m pints per year

The final investment figure of £661,000 achieved more than double the independent brewer’s target of £300,000.

The new kit brings Anspach & Hobday from a 1,400L batch kit to a 4,000L batch kit, bringing its yearly capacity from 333,000 litres to 1m litres, equating to up to 1.76m pints a year. Anspach & Hobday added the new brew kit sets the foundations to even grow far beyond that into the future with additional tank space.

British team success

Anspach & Hobday worked with a team of British manufacturers in the construction of the new kit, with Fabdec’s Britanx from Ellesmere creating the five new 8,000L fermentation vessels and 6ix Process Design from Templecombe designing and building the brewing house.

The kettle on the brew house is fired by Nuneaton’s Lanemark Combustion Engineering, bringing together a full house of British industry for the purpose of growing local and independent beer.

The raise was chiefly to meet demand for “a sky-rocketing demand for London Black”, which is the company’s their nitro porter and local alternative to Guinness. The business said sales of London Black have exploded in line with the expansion growing to 66% of the total brewery’s current production.

More cask pledge 

Co-founder and chairman Jack Hobday said: “We are incredibly proud of the British success story that this expansion represents and I would like to thank each of the manufacturers for their great work. Driven by the popularity of London Black, this fantastic new installation may mean we soon become London's biggest independent porter brewery.”

The brewer said recently the increase in production ability will coincide with more cask beers being made​ too and that cask has enjoyed the same rate of growth as keg beer.

Hobday explained: “Since about 2017, it has been around 10% of what we brew and this has been maintained this side of the pandemic with cask growing in line as overall sales volumes have grown by 30%.”

Its London Black porter is available at more than 140 venues now, including in Luxembourg. You can find your nearest pint using the interactive London Black map here​.